The Fault in Our Stars (2014), PG-13, ★★1/2

Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort.

Every year (I think every 6 months) there is a traditional teen chick flick and sometimes I cringe because I question the studios behind these projects whether they can take this genre in another direction or craft something original. I had to suffer through Endless Love, a clichéd teen romance that had stupid characters in preposterous situations. I understand that most teenage chick flicks consider that love is universal. It always happens and it is natural in our lives. You only live once. However, pain is universal and reality has to interfere between two people in love. Love and pain interweave with one another in this adaptation from the best-selling book.

Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is a teenage girl who is suffering from Stage IV thyroid cancer and has to carry an oxygen tank with a cannula in her nose to breathe. Her parents, Frannie and Michael (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell), insist to attend a cancer support group. Frannie wants Hazel to make some friends, but as Hazel says, the worse thing that biting it from cancer is having a kid biting it from cancer.

One day during her trip to the group, she meets Augustus "Gus" Waters (Ansel Elgort) and Gus continues to stare at Hazel and is thunderstruck. When Gus gets called on after his friend, Isaac (Nat Wolff), said his confession regarding his eye tumor and blessing for his "smoking hot" girlfriend, Monica, he says that he is in remission from osteosarcoma, a malignant primary marrow bone cancer after having his right leg amputated. After being asked if Gus fears for something, he replies that he fears "oblivion". Hazel refutes his response that everyone will be gone or forgotten in time.

After the meeting, Hazel and Gus talk and get along and he invites to come over to his house and watch a movie. While driving home, Gus asks Hazel how she acquired cancer and she reveals that she got cancer at 13 and had to go through required treatment and it did not work and had to go to the ICU. After arriving to his house, he, Hazel and Gus' family have dinner and Gus asks Hazel about her real story. Hazel claims that she has a boring life, but Gus does not believe that. Gus recommends Hazel a book about his favorite game and in return, Hazel recommends him a book about a girl having leukemia, but she tells him that it is not a cancer story. The Fault in Our Stars is not really a cancer story, either.

Gus treats Hazel to a nice dinner.

To get to the point, I am not recommending this movie and it is going to astound you and fans of the book and the film. My problem is that 100% of the dialogue is crisp and edgy and about 40% of the dialogue does not click with the teenage characters because it is unrealistic to hear actual teenagers talk intelligently and sharply. It is basically the writers and the author talking. I would have mixed in realistic dialogue with the intelligent dialogue to flow better. It got a bit too credible that I thought that Gus' dialogue was corny.

I will confess that I did a get a bit teary-eyed in one scene full of scenes that try to persuade me to cry. It feels that the heart-tugging scenes or moments are inserted to obtain our weepy emotions and that bothered me because a few scenes are set up to deliver the realistic and tragic punchline and therefore, they got more predictable than sad. However, the moments when both Gus and Hazel are just conversing naturally about Hazel's book like texting and talking on the phone, they are truly good.

Shailene Woodley delivers another great performance in her filmography. The Descendants was not a fluke, she makes us feel sad for her to go through all of her struggles. She is faithful to her character and nails it. Ansel Elgort is fine individually, but when he talks with Woodley, he talks confidently but looks stiff as he does not what direction his character is going to. I did not totally buy the chemistry between them as a romantic couple but two friends hanging out before "one's grenade is about to explode". Laura Dern is terrific as Hazel's mother and I think it is possible for the studio to campaign an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Woodley for Best Actress: A slim chance, but it is possible, we'll see in the second half of the year. Willem Dafoe is a good actor but has a scene in the movie with Woodley and Elgort where it is really awkward as they did not rehearse nor practice their lines.

I also want to praise the soundtrack of the film as it identifies the tone of the film. I thought Josh Boone did a flawed, but credible job with the activity going around with the cancer. We watch scenes of how each character is progressing, but we see that the scene has to end with an irrelevant moment or an irrelevant line of dialogue that does not completely sell the scene. I was glad that the characters were self-aware of what was going on in their lives and they do not have much time. Again, as I said, love is universal, but pain is also universal.

I did like the last 20 minutes of the film a lot. If they were to give us those consistent tonal scenes, the movie would have worked. On balance, Dern and Woodley are sensational, the music is great, but besides one scene that got me, the movie gets a bit too manipulative of pushing my buttons on when to cry or when to smile. There are moments of pure brilliance and pure reality, but the movie is scattered with manipulation. I may have to watch with another person or on cable in the future, but for now, I am in the minority on this and I expect to get negative feedback, but it was a disappointment.

**1/2